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Explore the variety of native and adapted plants for your corner of Texas — whether you’re looking for color, shade, a home for wildlife or just never want to mow again.

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Loquat Oak
A fast-growing, evergreen Mexican red oak.
Coastal Live Oak
A majestic tree, one of the largest east of the Rockies.
Texas Red Oak
Under optimal conditions, a fast-growing and very large tree.
Monterrey Oak
A fast-growing southwestern oak considered resistant to oak wilt.
Escarpment Live Oak
The most durable and adaptable oak for south-central Texas.
Lacey Oak
An extremely drought-tolerant (but slow growing) small oak.
Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa)
Bur Oak
A large-growing oak with fist-sized acorns. Well-adapted to clay soils.
Chinquapin Oak
Adaptable to any site except very heavy clay soils.
Anaqua
The Sandpaper Tree: a South Texas specialty.
Ballmoss leaves.
Ball Moss
Ball moss lives in tree branches and feasts on morning dew: not a parasite, but an epiphyte.
Japanese plum is one of the earliest fruits of the year in San Antonio.
Loquat

Winter blooms, fragrant flowers, and delicious fruit.

Pittosporum leaves and flowers.
Pittosporum
Big, versatile. and well suited for dappled shade.
Texas Milkweed
Great milkweed for a shady pollinator garden.
Liriope
An evergreen perennial with strappy dark green foliage.
Japanese Yew
An evergreen accent for partial shade.
Mexican honeysuckle flowers.
Mexican Honeysuckle

A hardy semi-evergreen perennial that performs well in dappled shade.

Arizona Cypress
A West Texas evergreen, and a fast-growing anchor for the watersaver landscape.
Black Beautyberry
A big Mexican beautyberry with wine-colored fruit.
Scarlet sage leaves and flowers.
Scarlet Sage
A tough native salvia for the shade garden.
Cast-iron plant.
Cast-Iron Plant
Aspidistra's tough, leathery leaves lend tropical lushness to deep dark shade.
Aztec Grass
An eye-catching lily turf that lights up the shade.
Asiatic Jasmine
Evergreen, adaptable, and a classic alternative for grass in shade.
Sandankwa viburnum leaves.
Sandankwa Viburnum
A rustic woodland viburnum for a shaded evergreen edge.
Pearl Milkweed Vine
An easily overlooked vine that rewards the curious with a unique flower.
Madrone

One of the loveliest Texas native trees, with peeling bark revealing muscular red trunks.

Spider Plant
A perennial houseplant. Provides a tropical effect when used as a shade groundcover.
Magnolia
A beautiful native tree, well-suited to deep coastal and riparian soils. Not recommended for thin hill country soils.
Crape Myrtle
"One hundred days of red."
Horseherb
A native, low-maintenance turfgrass substitute.
Bermuda Grass

A very tough drought-tolerant turf grass suited for full sun.

Deodar Cedar

A large conifer for deeper soils; it can be damaged by extreme freezes.

St. Augustine Grass

A dense turfgrass for sites with some shade; expect extra watering if you grow it in the sun.

Coma
Like a little live oak with thorns, and big fragrance in bloom.
Gray Shrub Sage
A compact and very xeric salvia, with electric blue flowers all season long.
Split-leaf Philodendron

Dramatic leathery leaves provide a tropical effect for the shaded patio.

Southwestern Bristlegrass

Partial shade. Semi-evergreen. A native perennial shade grass with long, broad leaf blades and attractive spikelet flowers. It is easily grown from seed and common under the dappled shade canopy of live oaks and other trees in woodlands, canyons, urban side yards and alleys. The fuzzy inflorescences light up in the setting sun.

In the home landscape, foxtail bristlegrass is probably most noticeable at the edges of the cultivated landscape during the summer mowing season. It is not an aggressive grass; avoiding mowing it and giving it some space will result in cheerful seedheads that may delight the eye. Painted buntings and other seed-eating birds may visit it during summer and autumn migration.